The sketch kicked off the cold open to "SNL" on Saturday, with Fey and Darrell Hammond skewering the former Alaska governor's endorsement speech in Iowa on Tuesday. As Palin, Fey said she had come to Iowa to break from "my full-time career of writing things on Facebook."

"SNL" also parodied this year's all-white Oscar nominees in a mock award show that nominated white actors playing bit roles in African-American dramas. Last week, the only Oscar nominations that the "Rocky" sequel "Creed" and the NWA biopic "Straight Outta Compton" received were for white people: Sylvester Stallone for "Creed," and "Compton" writers Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff.

In the sketch, an award was given to "all the white guys" in predominantly black films modeled after "Creed,"''Compton" and "Beasts of No Nation." The roles were barely cameos, like: "White Man With Camera" and "Unseen Voice On Phone."

"Saturday Night Live," however, has also been much-criticized in the past about its own diversity. Following an uproar in 2013, it added Sasheer Zamata, Leslie Jones and writer LaKendra Tookes.